Quattrocchi dies, Bofors buried
High-profile accused in India’s first widely-publicised scam passes away at 74 in Milan home
NEW DELHI: Controversial Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi — a key figure in the Bofors case, India’s first highly-publicised corruption scam — died at the age of 74 in Milan following a stroke on Thursday night.
“I can confirm that my father Ottavio Quattrocchi passed away quietly on Thursday night in the presence of my family. I will say only this much,” a member of the household, who iden- tified herself as Quattrocchi’s daughter, told HT over the phone from Milan. His funeral will take place on Monday.
The Bofors charge sheet filed in 1999 by the CBI had named Quattrocchi, who was the Italian firm’s representative in India, as one of the accused in the case regarding the R64 crore payoffs for supply of Swedish Howitzer guns to the Indian Army. The R1,600 crore contract was clinched in 1986.
But on March 4, 2011, the Tis Hazari court in New Delhi discharged Quattrocchi from the payoffs case after allowing the CBI to withdraw prosecution against him, bringing to an end a major chapter in the 25-year-old Bofors saga. An application for withdrawal of the case against Quattrocchi was filed by the public prosecutor on October 3, 2009.
The CBI had unsuccessfully tried to extradite Quattrocchi to India but it lost two extradition appeals, first in Malaysia in 2002, and then in Argentina in 2007.
Quattrocchi left India in 1993 to avoid being arrested.
NEW DELHI: In its final response on the Ottavio Quattrocchi issue, the government had informed Parliament in April that no case survived against the Italian businessman and he was a free citizen.
In response to a written question in the Lok Sabha on April 23, defence minister AK Antony had also made it clear that there was no plan to launch any fresh probe into the Bofors gun deal.
Antony said Quattrocchi stood “discharged” since he could not be extradited even after 20 years of registration of the case against him.
“An application for withdrawal of court case against Ottavio Quattrocchi was filed by public prosecutor on October 3, 2009 in the court of the chief metropolitan magistrate, who passed an order allowing withdrawal of prosecution case against Ottavio Quattrocchi in 2011.”
Quattrocchi had left India on July 29-30, 1993, before CBI had any material evidence warranting his arrest, he said.
“Consequently, he (Quattrocchi) stands discharged from the case,” Antony said.
He said that the measures to get Quattrocchi extradited from Malaysia and Argentina could not succeed.
“As per the information pro- vided by CBI, the measures taken for extradition of accused Ottavio Quattrochhi from Malaysia and Argentina could not succeed even 20 years after the registration of the case,” the defence minister had said.
He also replied in the negative to a query whether the government plans to launch a fresh probe to look into the 1986 Bofors deal.
Bofors scandal, which turned out to be one of the longest running political battles in the country’s history, provided ammunition to the non-Congress parties repeatedly since fresh revelations kept emerging for nearly two decades.
The Congress on Friday said Quattrocchi was a “ghost” created by BJP and slammed the opposition for seeking to drag his name to malign the party.
Party leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, “I don’t understand why Congress should react to the death of somebody who has been a ghost created by the BJP. Somebody has died, his family deserves condolences.”
BJP leader Prakash Javadekar, however, dismissed Singhvi’s charges saying the ghost was created because Congress was “hosting” him. “The ghost was not created by BJP but by VP Singh and if we had created the ghost, it is because you were hosting it,” he said reacting to Quattrocchi’s death.